Good governance begins in the founders’ head: Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani

“First good governance begins in the founders’ heads. No amount of oversight by investors, boards, audit committees or auditors can ensure a company is well governed if the founders are not committed to this objective,” said Bikhchandani in a tweet.
“When I was on the Board of @makemytrip, I was awarded ESOP. In line with Satish Mandhana’s sane advice, @hitobs, Ambarish, and I decided that the economic benefit of this ESOP should go to Info Edge rather than to me as that would align all of our shareholders’ interests,” he added.

The serial entrepreneur’s statement comes in the wake of Sequoia Capital, one of India’s largest investors in startups,
publishing a blog post on governance on Sunday.

Silicon Valley’s storied VC firm, famed for being an early backer of tech giants like Google, Apple and WhatsApp,
said in a blog post on Sunday that it would take ‘proactive steps’ and drive further compliance across its portfolio firms.

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“Recently, some portfolio founders have been under investigation for potential fraudulent practices or poor governance. These allegations are deeply disturbing. We have always strongly encouraged founders to play the long game,” Sequoia said in the blog post.

Earlier this month, Singapore-based Zilingo
suspended its Indian founder and chief executive Ankiti Bose after discrepancies were allegedly discovered in the company’s accounting. Soon after, Sequoia India managing director Shailendra Singh
stepped down from the board of Zilingo.

On March 12, ET first reported that EY India was conducting
a forensic audit at social commerce startup Trell.

In January, BharatPe’s cofounder Ashneer Grover became embroiled in a major controversy
after the leak of an expletive-laden audio clip. Two months later he and his wife
Madhuri Jain, head of controls at BharatPe, were out of the firm.

Recently, the income tax department
carried out searches at Sequoia Capital-backed Zetwerk’s premises for suspected tax evasion.